


Diogenes

by redonpointe



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Mycroft-centric, POV Mycroft Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 18:13:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7233307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redonpointe/pseuds/redonpointe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft Holmes learns caring is not an advantage. Short character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diogenes

Mycroft Holmes hadn't always been the 'Ice Man'. He'd been loving and warm once. Perhaps not to the extent others might've expected him to be but enough for the difference to be noticeable. He'd also had a dog. An affectionate beagle he'd named Diogenes after a figure he'd learned of in his philosophy books.

Sherlock didn't remember. He'd been only a year old when the dog had died after an increase in epileptic episodes. But Mycroft loved that dog and its companionship had been a welcome reprieve from the loneliness of his childhood.

When he'd found its unmoving body underneath a tree in his parents garden he'd been struck mute with grief. Even then he hadn't been the sort of child to cry. He'd weathered his pain in silence. Digging a hole to bury him in. Scrubbing his chafed hands clean of dirt. His mother pulled him into her arms afterwards and assured him everything would be all right. That it was okay to cry.

All Mycroft could think of was 'Love is rubbish. I will never let myself feel this pain again.'

Of course there was already one little snag in his plan. He loved his nearly one year old brother more than he could ever love any dog. And he was terrified. What if he lost him too? What if one day he found him splayed out on the floor and he lost more than just a tiny piece of his heart? What if he lost it all?

And so it was that over the years that loving and warm little boy was slowly consumed with fear. He kept his brother at arms length and lost a piece of his heart every time he found him splayed on the floor in the grip of one drug or another. He felt himself growing hollow with every alley and every doss house. His love for him never diminished but his fear hurt them both in irreversible ways.

Mycroft lived with many regrets, but isolating his brother in loneliness because of his own fear was by far the worst thing he'd ever done to Sherlock. The weight of that guilt sometimes woke him up in the middle of the night threatening to choke the life right out of him.

The damage was irreparable. He'd tried for years.

_Caring was not an advantage._


End file.
